French PM Survives No-Confidence Votes 10/16 06:07

   

   PARIS (AP) -- French Prime Minister Sbastien Lecornu survived two votes of 
no-confidence Thursday that could have toppled his fragile new government and 
plunged France deeper into political chaos.

   The National Assembly votes clear the way for the embattled Lecornu to 
pursue what could be an even greater challenge: getting a 2026 budget for the 
European Union's second-largest economy through Parliament's powerful but 
bitterly divided lower house before the end of the year.

   Lecornu's survival also spares any immediate need for President Emmanuel 
Macron to again dissolve the National Assembly and call snap legislative 
elections, a hazardous option that the French leader had signaled that he might 
take if Lecornu fell.

   The close ally of the French president faced two no-confidence motions filed 
by Macron's fiercest opponents -- the hard-left France Unbowed party and Marine 
Le Pen of the far-right National Rally and her allies in Parliament.

   The 577-seat chamber voted on the France Unbowed motion first -- and it fell 
short by 18 votes, with 271 lawmakers supporting it. It needed a majority of 
289 votes to succeed.

   Le Pen's second motion got just 144 votes, well short of a majority.

   But Lecornu isn't out of the woods yet.

   To get the votes he needed, Lecornu dangled the possibility of rolling back 
one of the flagship but most unpopular reforms of Macron's second term as 
president, which will gradually raise France's retirement age from 62 to 64.

   Lecornu's proposed suspension of the 2023 pension reform helped convince 
opposition Socialist Party lawmakers to grudgingly decide not to back the 
efforts to topple him, at least for now. With 69 lawmakers, Socialist backing 
for Lecornu's removal would have tipped the votes against him. But just seven 
Socialists broke ranks in voting for the France Unbowed motion.

   The conservative Republicans, with 50 lawmakers, also withheld support for 
Lecornu's removal, with just one exception.

   But Lecornu's still fragile position could yet crumble in the coming weeks 
or months if the Socialist or Republicans lawmakers change tack and support any 
future no-confidence votes if they don't get what they want in the budget 
negotiations that are sure to be fractious.

   Lecornu has promised not to use a special constitutional power to railroad 
the budget through Parliament without lawmakers' approval -- which was the tool 
that Macron's government employed to impose the 2023 pension reform despite a 
firestorm of protests.

   Building consensus in Parliament for tax hikes, spending cuts and other 
budget measures to start reining in France's ballooning state deficit and debt 
promises to be extremely difficult.